The immune system creates our defence against infectious organisms, such as bacteria and viruses, foreign substances or transplanted organs, including a new liver.
Your body will recognise your new liver as foreign tissue and your immune system will attempt to reject it. This is a normal reaction. After your operation, medications such as tacrolimus/cyclosporin, prednisone and azathioprine are used to lower your body’s immune response (immunosuppression), so as to lessen the chance of rejection.
These medications do result in less rejection. However, because they alter your immune response, they also make you more likely to suffer from infections, because the immune system also serves as a defence mechanism against bacteria and viruses entering your body.
In many ways your medication treatment is a careful balancing act - to give enough so that your body does not reject your new liver but not too much so as to predispose you to infections or other side-effects. Because these medications have such an important function, they are medications that you will always have to take. You will also have to be closely followed by the Transplant Team.
Despite the tremendous progress in liver transplantation, it is still not a cure. It is a treatment for your liver disease. This is why it is so important for you to follow the medication and lifestyle regime that will be recommended for you. Your efforts, together with those of the Transplant Team, are intended to increase your quality of life and return you to as normal life as possible. Complications that can be prevented will be picked up early with regular follow-up and allow treatment to be given straight away.
You will be on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your life.